Wanted
by MissNMikaelson
Summary: Elena overheard a conversation she shouldn't have.


**I do not own TVD or TO.**

**This was originally written for a tumblr challenge.**

* * *

She wasn't an eavesdropper.

She had never been the type of person to lurk in corners.

She didn't hover in dark halls.

She had never pressed her ears to the cracks in a door, or crouched beneath an open window.

Private conversations were private conversations. Her enhanced hearing meant voices reached her from greater distances, but she always ignored them.

Usually she ignored them.

She really tried to ignore them.

When her heart dropped into her stomach she wished she had ignored them.

* * *

She couldn't help but think there was something almost poetic about her exit. Eight years before he had vanished from her town with nothing but a letter that had barely said goodbye, and now she was going the same way.

Maybe a better person would have stayed and told him why, but the thought of facing him brought tears to her eyes. She wasn't a coward. She just wanted to protect her heart. She needed to shield herself so she was going to run. She was going to flee with all of the haste her supernatural status provided.

After all, she was 'just like Katherine'.

Swallowing her emotions down she buried them where they could no longer be a burden and left the room; a folded slip of paper the only evidence she had ever been there.

She should have known a clean getaway from the house would be impossible. Half way down the stairs her path was blocked by an Original and a hybrid.

"Leaving so soon, love?" Rebekah eyed the bag slung over her shoulder.

"Where are you off to?" Hayley tilted her head.

She nodded to the front door as she pushed between them.

"I'm going out that door," she pointed without looking back, "and I'm going to get in my car, and I'm going to drive." Her cold voice lowered to an angry mutter. "I'm going to drive until I find a place where nobody has ever seen my face."

"I guess she got what she wanted," Hayley scoffed when the brunette was gone.

"No," Rebekah shook her head; she had heard the angry mutter and seen the ghost of tears. "No, she didn't."

* * *

In retrospect he knew there had been a few signs that something wasn't quite right upon his return to the compound.

Rebekah had glared at him so hard that he had been surprised when silver daggers hadn't flown forth to incapacitate him.

Her scent, which had been so strong at the door, faded the closer he got to the bedroom.

A folded slip of paper sat on the foot of the bed.

The thing about hindsight: it's twenty-twenty.

When Rebekah barged into his room to berate him he wondered what had become of his meek baby sister.

"What the bloody hell did you do to her?"

He considered defending himself, but he couldn't find the words. Instead he held out the letter in offering. As she began to read he sank onto the bed and buried his head in his hands. The looping letters played through his mind in her quiet voice; each word was a stab of anguish.

_Elijah,_

_I thought I could do this, but I can't. I spent so much time pretending to be someone I wasn't without even realizing I was doing it while I was with Stefan and later Damon. Stefan wanted me to be that scared little human he met in the cemetery; Damon wanted me to be like her._

_I'm tired of being someone I'm not. I don't want to be someone's second choice anymore so I'm leaving._

_Maybe if I'm lucky I'll find some remote corner of the planet Katherine hasn't set foot on._

_Elena._

Rebekah read through the letter twice before sighing and sitting beside him.

"Tell me you didn't compare her to that bitch," her eyes narrowed when she thought of the master manipulator.

"Of course not," he shook his head. "There is no comparison."

"So what?" Rebekah frowned. "You're not hung up on Hayley?"

"No," his voice hardened, "and I'm getting rather sick of the accusation. You're the second person today to accuse me of such."

Rebekah's eyes narrowed suspiciously. She snapped the letter in front of him.

"Is any of this justifiable?"

He tore the paper from her hand and crumpled it.

"I love her Rebekah, not Katerina, or Hayley, or… fuck… or Tatia. I love her."

"Then might I make a suggestion?" She waited for his nod. "Find her and sort this out before she utilizes one of her witch friends and vanishes. She took Route 10 towards the Bayou."

She highly doubted he had needed the prompting. The only thing he required was the direction. In a rush of wind Elijah was gone and Kol stood leaning in the doorframe.

"I thought you hated the doppelganger?" He narrowed his eyes. "I was certain you'd be tickled to find her gone."

"Why do I get the feeling you're responsible for this?" She nodded to the letter and waved to the nightstand where a green journal had once sat.

She sighed when he offered no answer.

"I don't hate her Kol. I don't particularly like her but I don't hate her. I'm willing to look past my dislike for Elijah's sake because he loves her. Why can't you?"

"She killed me," his voice dropped to a growl.

"An act that was the direct result of a sire bond," Rebekah pointed out. "She may as well have been compelled. You need to let that go; you're alive and she apologized. Isn't the important thing that Elijah's happy? He's had precious little of that in the past thousand years."

* * *

A thick layer of water blurred the world beyond her windshield. It took her a while to realize it was not the heavy rain, but her tears.

She swiped at her cheeks and blinked until she could see in front of her again. A midnight rainstorm in the Bayou meant the only light came from her car.

She didn't see the figure until it was right in front of her. Instinctively she swerved to avoid it.

The car careened into the ditch and smashed into a tree.

She gasped on impact and rubbed the knot from the back of her neck. Before she could attempt to open the warped door it was wrenched from the frame and tossed aside. A small yelp escaped as she was pulled from the vehicle and sat on her feet.

"Are you alright?" Concern flashed in his eyes.

"I'm fine," she shivered.

The downpour quickly soaked through her clothes until she resembled a drowned river rat. Her eyes fell from his face to his chest. The crisp blue dress shirt clung to his skin wherever the rain touched him, which was everywhere.

"Let me go, Elijah."

"I can't do that" he shook his head, "for two reasons. One: I don't believe you really want me to let you go."

"I do."

They both heard her heart jump.

"I also don't want to," his hands slid down her arms and closed around her frozen fingers.

"Yeah, right," she tried to take back her hands. "I heard you and Kol. You didn't say anything."

"Because I didn't want to dignify his wild allegations with a response," he squeezed her hands. "I am not in love with Hayley, or pining for Katerina, or anyone else Kol might have alluded to after I hung up the phone. I don't want anyone else; just you."

"Me?" She couldn't help but scoff. "Nobody ever wants me."

"I do," he released her hand to top up her chin and meet her eyes. "I want you."

She was one of the kindest people he had ever met. She reminded him what it was to be human even now that she was a vampire. It wasn't logical, the way she made him feel. Given his particular history with her ancestors he should have been pre-disposed to loathe her on sight, but he didn't.

Somehow, some way, he had gotten to the point where he would fall apart without her. Had he been more forthcoming with that information, verbal in his emotions, she might have never run, but one thing he had never exceled at was expressing his own feelings; centuries of heartbreak had made him guarded.

After a thousand years he had erected walls around his heart, impenetrable walls that none had dared to climb, but she had chipped away at him bit by bit – starting with the dagger placed in his hand; it had forged the first fissure.

He didn't let people in, but she had slowly found her way without trying.

"I love you, Elena Gilbert," he searched her eyes.

Her heart fluttered when he said the words for the first time; his heart remained steady.

"If you don't feel the same way about me I'll let you go right now and I won't follow, but if you do then I'm afraid I'll have to do the selfish thing for the first time in my life."

"And what's the selfish thing?" Her teeth chattered. Part of her wanted to say no and run because if she said yes then she would have been opening the door to potential heartbreak. Another part of her wanted to scream yes because she thought maybe, just maybe, he might be her last first 'I love you'.

She knew the first response would have been a lie, but the second would have been true.

"The selfish thing would be spending the rest of my absurdly long life making you feel wanted." He tilted his head. "Which will it be?"

He fell silent so the only sound accompanying her thundering heart was the pounding rain. It pinged off the car, bounced on the pavement and danced through the leaves.

She knew what she wanted to say but she couldn't bring a voice to the words; part of her was still scared of admitting it and what it meant when she reciprocated those words.

As much as she wanted to have anonymity she wanted him more.

Wrapping her arms around his neck she stood on her tiptoe and paused a hairsbreadth from his parted lips.

It seemed to Elijah that she hovered there for an eternity. Anticipation hummed through him, and when she finally pressed her lips to his a bolt of lightning struck them both; it passed through them setting every nerve-ending on fire.

He broke the soft kiss to rest his forehead against hers.

"Am I to take that as a yes?" His whisper was almost lost to the rain, but when she nodded he grinned.

Catching her under her thighs he lifted her into his arms and met her mouth in a long, passionate, kiss that had her wrapping her legs around his waist and raking her fingers through his wet hair.

Her eyes popped open when her back was pressed against rough wood and looked up as he began laying kisses along her throat, moaning when he nipped her fluttering pulse.

"Wh-Where are we?" Her breath caught in her throat. She had never seen the cabin before, but she could make out a high desk in the gloom.

"It was a clinic," he set her on the desktop, "now it's abandoned and serves as out shelter from the storm."

"We wouldn't need shelter if you hadn't wrecked my car," she cocked an eyebrow.

"I am sorry about that lovely," his smirk said he was anything but. "Will you allow me to make it up to you?" His fingers slipped under her skirt and raised goosebumps along her skin.

Nodding, she lifted her hips and watched him peel the wet lace down her legs.

He placed the material in his jacket pocket while sinking to his knees.


End file.
